Join PEN International some time, as I did years ago. Read theaccounts of how journalists and dissidents are put in small rooms, andmentally, emotionally and physically turned inside-out byinterrogators. You'll find the same techniques used in this showdescribed in considerable detail there. Join Amnesty Internationalwhile you're at it, and read more about how this sort of thing is doneevery day in dozens of countries around the world.

PAUL SHEWARD <100256.1563@compuserve.com> asks:> What's up Joe, hectic schedule or too many late nights on the web> ?

"Touchy, touchy! What's up Joe, hectic schedule or too many latenights on the web?"

No, I do sometimes get annoyed by people whose worldview is sosmall that they think that interrogation began with "The Prisoner" TVshow and don't seem to know anything about the real world...and want tonarrow you down to their view by saying that what you did springs fromthere, rather than the aforementioned real world. Fine, I'm glad thatyou've seen the Prisoner...now read a book or two about what happens topolitical prisoners in the real world. Then we'll talk.

Further, as a writer you strive to create somethingoriginal...and when someone comes along and says, of something based onthe real world, on research, on stuff I encountered while getting mydegree in clinical psychology, on years spent supporting PEN andAmnesty International, "Oh, you were just doing "The Prisoner"...ittends to grate.

"So where did the inspiration for the interrogators attire come from.You know dark suit, the hint of gold trim and buttons on the collar."

Well, if you paid attention to the show you'd know that's astandard business suit which we've used many times before andthereafter; we literally pulled it off the rack in wardrobe. You sawthat as a Prisoner suit because that's what you wanted to see.

The problem isn't in the object being perceived; the problem isin the narrow world view of the perceiver who bends everything to fitwhat he knows.

Thanks. Yes, there are themes that are eternal and metamorphoseand are reinvented regularly; that's the point of myth and the art ofstorytelling, so I agree with your premise. Each generation sees theseelements differently.

PAUL SHEWARD <100256.1563@compuserve.com> asks:> So, why the problem with being 'associated' with The Prisoner> anyway ? From The Prisoners 'Rover' killer beachballs, to the> 'Glade' air freshener used as the drive section for the> Liberator, so have we lost the ability to differentiate> lampoonery from ridicule ? Do you think the producers of Voyager> will be pleased or miffed to have parallels drawn between the> 'year of hell' and B5 ?

The *problem* is that it didn't happen that way, for starters,and it makes it into something more appropos for a fanzine. Basically,if you spent all summer building a car, and somebody said you justbought it from somebody else, no matter how nice that other car mightbe, how good it would be to be associated with it...you put in a hellof a lot of work building it, and to be offhandedly told otherwise isannoying.

And, again, it just diminishes the implications, makes itsafe...it's not about the real world, it's just about the Prisoner.